


And What If I Refuse?

by fav_littleleaf



Category: Dragon Quest XI
Genre: Act 2 & 3 Spoilers, Act 3 Fix-it, And this is just what happens if you decide not to, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, But also not really bc you don't have to play Act 3, Established Relationship, Hero | Luminary is Named Eleven | El (Dragon Quest XI), Hurts So Good, Implied/Referenced Abuse, M/M, Nightmares, POV Alternating, Team Act III Sucks, Trauma, mostly angst, skip to ch 4 if you just want the fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:20:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25343089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fav_littleleaf/pseuds/fav_littleleaf
Summary: The white noise around him had reduced to whispers, fading to the background among the unseen clock ticking the seconds down until their farewell. Perhaps they recognized that none of it was reaching him; perhaps they recognized that he was playing them all for fools.The silence was broken by Erik stepping towards him, resolute. Before Eleven could meet his gaze, he had turned to face the others. "Could you… give us a few minutes alone?"
Relationships: Camus | Erik & Sena | Serena, Camus | Erik/Hero | Luminary (Dragon Quest XI)
Comments: 70
Kudos: 91





	1. Time

**Author's Note:**

> This story is what happens in my head if you choose not to play the postgame. There are a lot of fascinating ethical issues at play with this decision that El has to make and I wanted to explore the implications of some of them (mostly in ch 3 once these dumb boys have had a chance to find their Words).
> 
> Enjoy!!

Of all Erdrea, of _all the places_ he could have found himself after defeating Mordegon, this one was a sorry excuse for thanks. It would have been funny — some proper World Tree humor — if he didn’t feel like his soul was about to split in two. The Tower of Lost Time did that to a person.

His friends stood around him in a circle, all speaking over each other, staggered by the news that the Luminary alone could go back. That he could never return. Their words flowed through his brain as if a sieve.

“I cannot permit you to do this.” 

If he could save everyone, if he could have never failed them all… what kind of opportunity ever came along like this? If he could, with the flick of his wrist, erase years of ruin and suffering, raise entire towns from ash — all things that had been his fault in the first place — how could he not do so? To think he had any choice in the matter was laughable.

“I vowed that I would protect you, Eleven —”

But the price to pay for this choice?

That price stood all around him, and the desire to hold them fast gripped his heart. It didn’t escape him that one of them was looking steadfastly anywhere but at him, his mouth in a stubborn line.

He lifted his hand, thoughtlessly, to reach out to him, but someone else began speaking before he could form the words in his head. 

“You defeated the Lord of Shadows, didn’t you? Isn’t that enough?” Sylvando said.

 _You think I want this?_ A voice shouted inside his head. _You think that if I had any other choice, I wouldn’t take it?_

“It’s not enough,” he said instead. Every part of him howled the opposite, but if he said it out loud enough times, he might have the strength to go. “I have to save everyone I can.”

Sylvando nodded, his hesitance mirroring Eleven’s internal battle. There were more voices, but they were lost to him; _he_ had looked up at him sharply. Eleven tried to hold on to his gaze, craving to know anything of what he was thinking or feeling, but he had already looked away, back down to a tiny spot on the floor.

“We’ll all still be together. We’ll just be… a little different,” he said lamely.

The white noise around him had reduced to whispers, fading to the background among the unseen clock ticking the seconds down until their farewell. Perhaps they recognized that none of it was reaching him; perhaps they recognized that he was playing them all for fools.

The silence was broken by Erik stepping towards him, resolute. Before Eleven could meet his gaze, he had turned to face the others. "Could you… give us a few minutes alone?"

They all looked at each other, wordlessly sizing up Erik as their ambassador, and finally each nodded somberly. Sylvando broke their formation first, assuring him they would just be down the next level, and the rest followed without comment. Jade muttered something to Erik as she brought up the rear; it sounded suspiciously like _bring him round for us._

As they all walked away from him, it became more and more clear that his duty as the Luminary was to abandon everything that made him Eleven. And that entailed, perhaps most of all, _not coming round._

As the others disappeared below them, Erik advanced on him, his steps slow but sure. With each step, Eleven’s heart sank — Erik from _before_ wouldn't have said a word, would have let Eleven go do his world-saving duty even though his own heart was breaking... but this Erik? The one he kissed under the stars in Sniflheim after they saved his sister, the one whose blade was an extension of his own? The one he was slowly — _slowly_ , with all the urgency of a slug — teaching his own worth? This one wouldn't take it sitting down.

There were merits to both, but at this moment he vastly preferred the former.

"Don't do this to me, please," Eleven whispered, instinctively taking a step backwards as Erik reached him. But Erik merely closed the distance, not stopping until their chests were almost flush together, until he was gazing directly up into Eleven’s eyes. 

"Don't do this to _you_?" His voice was silken and soft, but quietly carried a great force of will. "After everything we've lost, you're gonna pile on another?”

His throat was suddenly dry, and it felt like someone had sucked all the air out of the room. There was no fair answer to that question, and Erik knew it. He averted his gaze. The press of Erik’s body intoxicated him, and he wished desperately that he could sink into it. But he also wanted to step away — knew that, Yggdrasil above, he _should_ — but the conflicting feelings threatening to pull him apart merely cancelled out. They kept him rooted traitorously to the spot.

"And it's not just another loss, El." He stepped in further, and tilted his head to graze his lips against Eleven's ear. "But _the most precious thing_." 

Eleven let out a shaky breath at the touch, as a jolt of warmth spread through him. His fingers sank into the space between Erik’s sash and his coat, pulling him in ever so slightly. “I am not,” he protested, a mere whisper.

“Oh yeah? You’re telling me that you’re not to Rab, his only family left, or —” Erik continued talking, but Eleven tuned out of it, hearing only the dangerously low pitch of his voice, feeling only the warmth of his breath against his skin. 

Erik knew exactly how uncomfortable it made him to hear that he was important, knew how quickly he turned to a quivering mess under his hands — he couldn't even be _angry —_ the way he was playing his advantage should have hurt, but it only made Eleven want to sink into him, to never hear another word.

“Don't,” Eleven said. “I have to save everyone, and this is the best way.”

Erik withdrew to look at him, and the new coldness made him shiver. "I want you to look at me and tell me that you're okay with what it will cost you. And I'll let you go."

 _Don't let me go,_ he wanted to cry. He wanted to drag Erik with him through time and space, drag them all, take them all with him to the ground. Eleven dipped his head against his neck, inhaling his scent, trying desperately to memorize it. "I can't, Erik, you know I can't."

That was the invitation Erik had been seeking, and his own curse. Erik closed the scant space between them, claiming his mouth, saying with his body what words could never say. Eleven melted into it, pulling him closer, lifting one hand to tangle in his hair and the other to clutch at the fabric of his coat. In a fluid movement, Erik unbuckled the strap that carried his sword, letting it fall to the ground. He pressed him down onto the foot of the stairs that led to the altar, sinking to straddle his lap. Eleven gasped against his mouth at the pressure, bringing his arms around Erik’s waist, body divested from brain, aching for reprieve. 

Then there were hands at his waist, undoing the belt that secured his bag.

“Erik —” he breathed, half protest and half encouragement to continue.

“I want to touch your skin,” he murmured. “Please let me.”

Eleven relented. In seconds, the bag fell to the ground, and all at once, he was defenseless — no sword, no shield, no strength to do what he knew was necessary. 

Erik got up so that he could kneel in front of him. With a reverence that made him flush, Erik lifted his tunic to the waist. He gazed up at Eleven for just a moment before dipping his head to kiss the skin just above his hip bone, one hand tracing up his stomach.

The tenderness broke something inside of him. Tears burned at his eyes. Even though he still had it, the loss lashed at him like a tongue of fire, harder now than it had done since they entered the tower. It was surely worse to both have the thing and be acutely aware of how soon it was going away — yet he was powerless in its wake. 

_He would not cry._

"El?" 

Erik looked up at him, fingers stilling over his skin.

“I can’t do this,” he whispered. 

He had said it out loud three times now, and he found that saying it was not making this any easier at all.

Erik sat back on his knees, giving him a look that made his skin prickle. He saw himself reflected in Erik’s eyes, a watery pleading for him to never leave his sight again. This, too, was something different in Erik since the Fall, since Sniflheim — he was more willing to show his inner self, the one that hurt and cried and fell and got up anyway.

Eleven reached out a hand to hold onto him. He might as well have poured a drop of water into the ocean. “I want you more than anything, Erik.”

“Then you _should stay._ ”

“This choice isn’t mine to make.”

_And that was four._

Something changed in Erik’s expression; his walls were going back up. They did, a lot, but Eleven prided himself on decreasing its frequency. This time, he felt, might change all the ones after.

This was _before_ Erik, this is what Eleven was reducing him to, this was his failure to protect all over again.

Unbidden, the words of the Gloomnivore that haunted underneath Dundrasil castle hissed inside his head. The words were never far from him. _You could not protect your friends… you could not save the world… what kind of hero are you?_

The only thing worse than not protecting his friends was knowing that he could and choosing not to. It didn’t matter that he would lose these versions of them. 

“I have to go now, or else I won’t have the strength.” He took a deep breath. “I need you to let me _._ ”

_I’m doing this for your sake._

Erik didn’t move.

“Get the others. _Now_.”

For half a second, Erik looked as if he had punched him, eyes big and wide. But then it passed, his face impassive, as if Eleven had just told him they needed to buy potatoes at the next market. He didn’t say a word, even though every atom inside Eleven’s head was screaming, _begging_ that Erik let him buy the potatoes, that he not just allow it, but be excited for him to experience the potatoes — 

His heart was going to burst — he knew acutely that the pain of it would break him if Time didn’t do it first.

Erik got to his feet and turned away from him. Just before he reached the moving platform, he looked back at Eleven. 

“I have just one thing to ask,” he whispered. 

“What is it?” Hope bloomed impossibly in his chest. For what, he didn’t know.

“When you go… don’t look back at me.”

“... Right.”

And then Erik was gone. 

He sank to the ground on one knee, meaning to collect his bag and sword, but managed only to drop his face into his arms. 

He refused to let the urge to cry overtake him. He needed to be strong for them. _For Serena_. It was his duty to keep going when all hope seemed to be lost — it had always been, even when they were children and he needed to protect Gemma, to rescue her from the river, collect her scarf from the tree — and to stop now, when they had more to hope for than they’d possibly ever had? No pain could ever be worth that.

With the thought comforting him, he straightened. He reached for the Sword of Light to replace it on his back. That alone brought him strength. 

The party reappeared on the platform just as he buckled his bag and got to his feet. As they approached him, they also pretended to be cheery and brave.

“Farewell, darling! I look forward to seeing you in the past!” Sylvando said, hugging him with so much enthusiasm he swore it crushed a rib.

He could only nod in response at each of their heartfelt speeches. Erik said nothing, but his eyes were on him the entire time; he elbowed Serena and gave her a wink when she felt shy about her own farewell.

When he had hugged everyone, he stepped towards Erik, closing the chasm between them once again. Eleven squeezed his hand, willing the action to communicate everything he had ever felt for him.

“Ellie,” he whispered.

Eleven closed his eyes and shook his head. He drew Erik towards him to press their lips together instead.

He took two steps backward, facing them, searing each of them into his memory, and he thought with a twinge that his glass could never be full enough of them. He almost backed into the Timekeeper, who steadied him with a long, ghostly arm.

“The time has come… step forward, Luminary… and into the past.”

He gave the Timekeeper a curt nod, and stepped up to the altar.

Eleven raised his arms high over his head, clutching the sword as his friends' stares burned into his back. The Time Sphere sparkled up at him, not so different from the moon, begging him to shatter it so that he could bring back the daylight. He closed his eyes, willing himself to focus on the light. It gave him hope — hope for a future where Veronica could run among them, complaining about whatever she wanted and he would never be annoyed again; where Erik could save Mia without first traumatizing an entire town; where Serena would no longer have to bear the heaviest loss he could imagine.

But as he thought of Serena, he thought too of the night they had spent sleepless in Arboria after finding Veronica’s lifeless body in the grove; how she had conjured fire with a snap of her fingers, the blazed look in her eye as she renewed her promise to protect him in Veronica’s stead, that ineffable _selfhood_ that he had never seen in her before. He thought of Hendrik, chasing them on horseback, yelling, all gritted teeth, but then: crawling through the ruins of Heliodor castle, twin blades striking, Hendrik kneeling at his feet and promising to be his sword, his shield, his unswerving companion. Telling him he brought hope and light wherever he went. 

And Erik — _Erik_ — holding him in his arms as it snowed deep into the night in Sniflheim, campfire crackling next to them, how he opened as a flower to the sun under the affectionate ditherings of his friends as he regained his memories — and that sleepy smile pressed against his neck every day when morning broke, whispering _I love you so much_.

Images flashed past his mind, more than he could count and more than he could summon the strength to bear. His hold on the Sword of Light slackened.

_Maybe there’s a better world out there, but I want this one._

_I want this one._

And then, without him deciding it, the sword clattered to the ground. An enormous echo rocked the silence. He fell to his knees. The world spun and fell also, in a great big gasp, like it had been holding its breath to die.

Footsteps broke the stillness — there were arms that came around him, nonsensical whispers, the rushing of sand falling all around them — someone covering his body with their own. Words burst forth — it sounded like _Eleven, oh Eleven_ — and then it wasn’t just one warmth but two, three, twenty, pulling him back from the precipice. The tears came, their steadfast dam shattered. This was his final resting place; this was where he would drown.

He was failing them all, all over again.


	2. Nightmare

The world barreled into him, casting him spinning with no one and nothing to hold on to.

_Trapped… someone crawling, on their knees… retching, moaning for respite… clouds swirling, purple-red-black, fire… towers, razed to ground… fire… so much fire..._

A heavy pressure drew him away. There were arms around him, clutching him.

“El. Ellie, wake up. It’s okay, I’m right here.”

 _Ellie._ That was his name — that wasn't what he wanted as his name — he didn't even deserve a name — 

He struggled against the person who had called him Ellie, tension coiling everywhere in his body. He was crying out something, but he didn't know what it was. Tears flooded his cheeks (or it was sweat? he didn't know), but he couldn't remember giving them permission. Where was he?

_Trapped… couldn't reach them… stuck in space, stuck in a pocket removed from all else… screaming… but so very far away…_

"You don't have to go, El. Stay right here with me."

 _No!_ There were people — such a deep pull to them, they were calling out for him, begging for him, beseeching him — 

A burst of cold silenced the cacophony of voices.

"El? What's going on? _Are you hurt?"_

The voice was back again, the same voice that held him. "It's okay. Nightmare. I've got him."

_Nightmare?_

As quickly as it had come, the coldness disappeared.

_Trapped… watching… an old tree, leaves crumpled, brown, fallen… lifeless… someone on their knees, crying… falling to the ground._

"Ellie, please, wake up. It's just a dream. Shhh, sit up for me, that’s right."

He took in a deep gulp of air. There was something dragging him up, something dragging him out of his prison.

_Dream. Just a dream._

He opened his eyes. They were in a tent, a lantern offering a feeble light. He was drenched in sweat, and his head pounded, and he shivered. He was sitting up, hunched over, with Erik holding his arms so tightly they hurt. 

"Erik? Erik — I'm really… cold…"

Erik didn't speak, but his eyes were full of tears. He moved one hand to find the blanket and drag it around them, maneuvering them both so he was holding Eleven as close to his body as he could.

"I'm sorry —" he whispered, his voice raspy and broken.

"Don't you dare apologize," Erik said, and then he was crying, and El was crying too.

**♫**

Days passed in a haze after they left the Tower. None of them wanted to leave Eleven, despite the distinct lack of something to save. They had traveled together since then, all over, never lacking for food or gratitude or a place to stay. It was only their spirit that was missing.

On the third day they made their way to Puerto Valor to visit Sylvando’s family. Erik was exhausted and had little patience for company, so that evening he sought out the beach. He had always been drawn to water, to the way it washed away everything that prickled at his skin and brain.

Erik leaned back against a log near the surf, holding his knife up to the firelight. He hadn't sharpened it for weeks. They hadn't had much need of it recently. Maybe that was a good thing, but it felt weird all the same, like trying to lace his shoes with his right hand.

"Hi," said a voice, shyly, to his right. “You tired of gambling too?”

He turned his head to find Serena. He nodded at her in acknowledgment; he had little energy for more.

"I… I just wanted to check on how you’re doing. You know, with … everything.”

“I’m fine, Serena.” He considered her. She looked tired, but her jaws were set and determined in a way they had been ever since— since... well. “I’m not the one you should be worried about.”

He thought he had been summarily dismissive, but Serena sat down next to him instead. She spread her feet out in front of the fire and wiggled her toes a little. The closeness was more comforting than he wanted to admit.

She spoke softly, as if afraid to spook him. "His burden doesn’t have to be only yours to bear, you know.” 

“Yeah,” he breathed. He wanted to say so many things; how his heart seized every time El cried out in his sleep, how it ached when Sylvando tried to get him to crack a smile but failed. How it felt to look at him when he had finally passed out under Serena’s sleep spell, deep and dreamless. 

But he couldn’t say any of that.

He put his knife down on the ground, and his hand went reflexively to the back of his neck. He wished she wouldn’t look at him like that. “I-I just... hate not knowing how to help him. It’s been days and he’s like a zombie. I mean, we saved everyone. I don’t know what more anyone could possibly ask of him. But this is eating him up inside.”

He looked over at her, asking, impossibly, for her to have the answers, for her to snap her fingers and bring back the world that they should have had. The one where defeating Mordegon meant unfettered joy and dancing and hunting for treasure. Not... _this_.

But she wasn’t looking back at him. She stared into the fire instead, the heat of it lighting up her face. She reached for a twig near her on the ground and threw it to the edge of the fire. It lay there for a moment, flames licking at its sides, before they caught and lit the entire length.

“We’ve lost so much,” she said, barely audible over the crackling. “This is the first time that it’s okay for him to feel something without needing to shut it down for everyone else’s sake. Of course he’s going to feel a lot.”

“You’re right. I just… worry.”

When she didn’t answer right away, he continued, digging into the sand with his toes. “I’ve been thinking about bringing him home to Cobblestone. Maybe everyone should be getting back to their lives, and... some normalcy would be good for him, right?”

 _Normalcy_. She just nodded, as if going back to those ruins could ever be normal — 

“Maybe you could try talking to him. When he’s ready.”

“Oh, I couldn’t — I wouldn’t have the first idea what —” 

She smiled at him, looking directly at him for the first time. Her face was bright in the wake of the flames, and he felt the warmth in his chest as if he had swallowed it. 

“He values your opinion more than anyone,” she said.

Part of him wanted to protest at her words, but he felt his cheeks heat up all the same. The problem was that El’s (and Serena’s) opinion of him was too high. There was no way he could offer him anything useful. He just selfishly wanted El to stay, and was that any good for the universe?

 _Was_ it any good for the universe? He hadn’t thought about it much since that day, but maybe now was as good a time as any to start.

Serena continued on, heedless to the mess swirling in his head. "It’s just that I wonder… if maybe he feels like he needs permission. To not go.”

She paused. The silence felt heavy.

“What do you mean?”

“I think that… maybe it’s better for everyone if we let Veronica’s sacrifice mean something.”

“Serena —”

“I want her back, but the truth is that I never will. Even if he goes back to save everyone, he can’t come back, he can’t bring her back here. What else might we lose if he goes back? What if everything goes wrong all over again?”

“I don’t —”

“I can feel her with me, Erik. In everything I do. Maybe that’s good enough.”

Words felt like cotton in his mouth. There couldn’t possibly be any words that matched the weight of what she had just said, any words that were deserving of her unflinchable spirit.

So he said nothing; instead he reached out his hand to cover hers on the ground between them, threading his fingers through hers. She was softer than El, her fingers smooth and warm. But he found he didn’t mind.

**♫**

By the following week they touched down in Cobblestone, and Erik found a proper night’s sleep did wonders for his fogginess and impatience. What wasn’t so wonderful was the afternoon sun beating down on them as they hiked up to the Cobblestone Tor. 

They’d barely had time to settle before Amber and Rab ushered them off to help gather materials for rebuilding the town. Erik thought it was a rather thinly disguised attempt to keep El busy and within reach of other people, but El just nodded and followed along. 

Gemma was a sprightly sight in front of them, skipping in her mint green dress and talking Rab’s ear off as they crossed the wooden bridge over deep waterfalls that roared high over the land.

“I hear the legends say that houses built from wood and stone from the Tor last longer than other houses. That’s how the church survived so long after the fires,” Gemma said conversationally. “We’ve been coming up here every day, we want to build the whole village out of it!”

Rab was making appreciative noises at her in response, but Erik didn’t think he was that interested. Or maybe that was just him.

He breathed a sigh of relief when they finally entered the chilly caves that lay at the mouth of the Tor. He walked along behind Rab and Gemma, watching Eleven carefully beside him. His expression was blank, and he was carrying a basket half full of wood already but hardly seemed to notice it. 

Erik ached to touch him; El had been shying away from affection, only tolerating it when the intent was a little more carnal, or else when he awoke in the middle of the night, too raw to put up his walls. But Serena’s herbs brought his nightmares much less often, and so it left Erik afloat, unable to reach for him in the best way he knew how.

His mind wandered, his feet blindly following the others. They’d been gathering wood and stone for hours already that morning — maybe he could steal El away for dinner… to talk, not to do anything else —

“Erik? Does that sound alright to you?” 

“Sorry, what?”

Rab smiled at him gently. “Would you go down to the lower level with El to look for stone?”

A familiar feeling pulled at his stomach. He shot a glance at El, who looked away as soon as he caught his eye. He had no idea whether Rab’s request was a targeted one, but he didn’t sense it was about to be successful. He sighed and nodded anyway, letting El lead them through the cave to the right and down the stone steps.

They turned the corner into a cavern that was divided by a little stream. On the other side, moss clung to rocks and creeped away from the light shining into the cavern. He wanted to say something, felt like he _should_ say something, but had no idea what it was. As they crossed a bridge over the water, he plucked up his courage.

“El —” he started, unable to reach for anything else but his name.

“Don’t,” El said.

He stopped on the bridge. He felt like his heart was about to stop with the realization — he couldn’t believe he hadn’t considered it before — “Have I done something to hurt you?”

El looked back at him, his eyes bright and sad in the light from the upper dome. “Sorry, it’s not you. I just... need time, okay?”

Time was one thing, sure, _time heals all things_ , but this didn’t feel right. It felt like going in the opposite direction, and El was only punctuating it by walking away from him to feel along the wall for loose rock.

He wanted to call him out on it, ask him _what in the hell is going through your head,_ but he knew it was useless. The impulse lived and died on his tongue.

He followed El off the bridge, pressing his hand along the wall too. He wouldn’t find anything El didn’t, but the wet coolness of the wall was a relief anyway, and he could pretend that he was touching El by proxy. His hand caught on a crevice, and it reminded him of the shelter in Sniflheim that had been his and Mia’s home. That place had never been _home_ , but as he watched El look up to bathe his face in the sunlight, he couldn’t stop himself from thinking: _This one could be._

No, that was maybe how it felt, but he couldn’t think that. Not now, when El wouldn’t so much as speak to him, when he had come to expect silence when they held each other at night, not whispers and touches and sighs. Who was he kidding, they didn’t even hold each other half the time.

A crash wrenched him from his thoughts. He whirled around to find El on his knees, at the edge of the grass before the water swallowed it up, his arms covering his face. Around him lay a large pile of craggy rock that had apparently fallen from a small lip of wall above him. He swore he heard the mutter: _I can’t even do this._

Erik crossed the cavern in a sprint. He knelt down to El’s left side, as near as he dared. “Are you okay? What’s happened?”

“Was just trying to get these rocks down — sorry, Erik, I’m fine...” 

_Like hell I trust you to tell the truth_ , he almost said out loud.

El gave him a look for a split second, as if he had heard. But then the moment was over and he looked down, holding his left arm protectively to his chest. 

“Let me see,” Erik said, trying to keep his voice soft, trying to ignore the way he curled in on himself like the last thing he wanted was to be touched by him. He reached out to take El’s wrist, and stifled the urge to press his other hand to El’s back.

There were angry red cuts on most of his arm from the jagged edges of the rocks, but it looked like he had shielded the rest of himself well enough. 

“Doesn’t look like anything we can’t fix, huh? We’ll get Rab down here —”

But before he finished speaking, his gaze stretched onto El’s hand, the one that bore the mark of the Luminary. There were different marks there: less angry, older. But there were several of them, as if whatever had made those marks had struck again and again, on separate days.

“What is this?” he murmured.

“It’s nothing, I swear — I wake up sometimes and it’s just like that, I —”

Erik gripped his wrist, fear for him coursing through his chest. He pushed away all kinds of thoughts — _how bad was it really if El’s surely already been mending it? How had he been so desperate to not leave him alone but was still,_ still, _failing him?_ Yggdrasil above, there was just too much. He took a deep breath. He knew that otherwise, he would shout.

“I think we need to talk, El. The others can get on without us.”

“No, please —”

“This has gone on long enough. It’s not fair to anyone who cares about you, and you know it.”

“Stop it, you’re hurting me —”

“This isn’t a game, you can’t just — you can’t —”

 _Can’t what?_ A voice inside his head mocked him. _Can’t tear yourself apart, can’t take this out on yourself, not when you’re the reason any of us are still here_ —

He swallowed all of the words, hating each of them for failing to express just how much El’s turmoil was tearing _Erik_ apart. And maybe it was better if El didn’t know. Maybe it would just hurt him more.

“I know it’s not a game,” El whispered. Erik didn’t want him to know, but he knew, _he saw_. El tilted his head down and closed his eyes. “But whatever it is, I’m losing.”

Footsteps clamored down the steps behind them. He knew he had only seconds.

“Please, I want to help you.” Erik let go of his arm. “Please let me.” He brought a hand up to trace over his back, losing against the temptation to soothe him. El didn’t flinch away, but didn’t move into it, and he gave the tiniest shake of his head before Gemma’s voice came rippling over the water.

“We heard something crashing! Is everyone okay?”

Gemma ran up over the bridge, Rab in tow behind her. She fell to his right side and threw her arms around him, not acknowledging Erik. El melted into her, away from him, and he felt an awful twinge. It was silly, and he knew it, but that didn’t stop how much it stung.

Rab climbed over the rocks to get a better vantage point from in front of El. “Och, you’re just a bit scratched up, aren’t ye, laddie? We’ll fix you up,” he said, already lifting his hands to hover over El’s arm. A green light appeared over it, and having been the recipient of it more than once, Erik felt the healing tingle in his body as if it were his own. Gemma tightened her arms around him as Rab worked.

“Are you hurt anywhere else?” Gemma said.

El shook his head, but there was a claustrophobic look on his face; one Erik knew well. They were about to lose their chance at him, too — 

“Listen, I’ve got to go, I... I’ll see you at dinner.” He shrugged off Gemma’s touch, and didn’t wait for them to acknowledge him before he was on his feet and off running towards the steps.

Erik was half on his feet to follow, instinct alone controlling him, but someone tugged on his sleeve.

“I think he might need some time alone, laddie.”

He sank back down to the ground. “But I —”

“Let’s just get what we need first. Then we’ll check on him, okay?”

He felt so helpless it was unbearable. He didn’t know what El needed. Was it tenderness? Tough love? If only Serena hadn’t needed to stay in Arboria, he could ask her for help. (Although if _one_ more person said he needed time...)

It was true, he hadn’t let El alone very often; but it had felt like, right at the end, El _wanted_ to lean in to him, let him take it all away. He’d never been any good at this emotions stuff, even after El, even after him trying to teach Erik that all his feelings were _okay_. Painful, maybe, but okay. How dare he turn his back on his own lesson? How dare he run from them?

Erik scowled and threw one of the rocks into his basket with unnecessary force. He turned to the water, then raised his knees to his chest and held on to them.

“Erik?” There was Gemma again, speaking more softly than she had any right to.

“Yeah?”

“Eleven seems awfully stressed. I thought he’d be happy after bringing back Yggdrasil. Is something the matter?”

He had to suppress a laugh at all the ways he could answer that. But perhaps the truth was as good as anything. 

“I don’t know, Gemma.” 

“I wish I knew,” she said wistfully. “He never talks to me anymore. Not like before.”

 _Join the club_ , he bit down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I originally planned this to be only two chapters, with some fluffy nonsense in between, but then the emotions felt weirdly off and relief too easily given. So this whole mess happened lol. I promise it turns out okay in the end!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!! you're all the best <3


	3. Wave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow guys I’m sorry this took so long! The COVID-induced depression is brutal. :( I do intend to write a fluffy epilogue (and have started some sketches for it), but I marked it as complete because the dramatic arc can technically stand by itself. :)
> 
> (update: jk it needs a proper ch 4 ending. coming soooon)

Eleven leaned against the rocky wall of the cave that overlooked Cobblestone, dangling his legs back and forth over the steep drop. Yggdrasil smiled down at him, but he frowned back. He was hungry, and tired, and his back ached for the curve of a pillow. But these were small prices to pay for finally getting to be alone. 

Everyone was always so _worried_ about him, but afraid to say so, constantly tiptoeing around him, and he was sick of it. The only thing that brought relief were Serena’s herbs that drowned him in a dreamless sleep. And even those were failing him recently.

His gaze lowered to survey the former bastion. King Carnelian's tent had been taken down, and most of the fences were gone, but left emptiness in their wake. The church and two houses were the only buildings still standing. 

It hurt to look at. He knew that Cobblestone would have been destroyed no matter what, but it felt too much like a symbol — like the broken stone was decrying him, that the Heliodorian flags were taunting him for his selfishness. Everyone had told him that he should only go if he was really sure, but he still felt that pang of… _whatever_ it was, and it refused to go away. 

It was better to ignore the feelings, to not name them, and when he was questioned, he parried. They’d go away eventually. They always did.

“I thought I’d find you here,” came a soft voice from behind him.

Eleven didn’t acknowledge him. There were those _feelings_ , tying themselves in knots in his stomach. There was something warm there, but it also hurt, and that was all the time of day he could afford to give them. He kept looking out at the sky, his mouth dry.

“You alright?”

“I’m fine.”

Erik didn’t speak again, just sat down away from him. He almost took a deep breath in relief. Maybe Erik wouldn’t make him talk. Maybe he could convince him to just make out a little, that’s all he needed — 

But then something touched against his leg with a soft _thump._ An apple lay on the ground next to him, bruised and splotched with yellow. 

Erik sat on the other side of the cave opening, his back to the wall and legs stretched out towards Eleven. “Go on,” he said, nodding towards it.

Eleven hated him sometimes for knowing exactly what he wanted and needed, for reading him down to places he didn’t want to be read; but it also made the warmth inside him glow uncomfortably. He turned back to look out over the cliff again, drawing his knees up into himself. “Thanks, but I’m not hungry.”

The silence lingered for a few moments, but Eleven didn’t chance a look back at Erik. He tightened his arms around his knees.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk right now, Ellie, but we’re not leaving here until you do. This is all you get.” Erik’s words were soft, but he delivered them with a hint of something else: insistent, almost threatening.

Despite himself, he shot a glance at Erik. His arms were crossed, and there was no trace of the usual playful smirk on his face. Fine, he could recognize this for what it was — a power play — but if Erik was going to play hard, Eleven could match it.

“I appreciate the thought, but I’ll be here as long as I want to.” 

Another pause. 

“Hm. I guess we’d better ration it, then.”

With a swift motion, Erik was right up next to him, kneeling to pick up the apple. Then it was up in the air; a flash of metal whizzed above his head, and suddenly it was pinned against the cavern wall. He gaped at the knife’s handle plunged into the bright red skin of the apple.

Something swooped low in his stomach. “Erik —”

“You have a problem?”

He took a deep breath. “No.”

And there was his smile, bright and charming. “I have an idea. How about we play a game?”

It was hard to imagine anything he wanted to do less. But this, he acknowledged, was the cost of his weakness. Erik was leaning back against the opposite wall, facing him, but he felt so impossibly far away; how had the past few weeks brought them to this? How had something that should have been so joyous turned into something so fraught?

All Eleven could do was nod.

“It works like this: we take turns saying one true thing. You can say anything you want, it just needs to be true.” He raised his arms to rest behind his head. “Start small. Tell me you’re tired, or hungry.”

Eleven sighed. He knew it would be better in the end to cooperate, but he was just so _tired_ — and trying to comb through the bird’s nest of emotions in his stomach was just asking for someone to get hurt. Probably himself. He lay down against the rock, yielding to it. 

“That sounds riveting.”

“I’ll start, then. We haven’t told Amber about what happened at the tower. She’s worried about you.”

Eleven closed his eyes. “I don’t want to hear about this.”

“Excellent. First true thing you’ve said all afternoon.”

“I-I, what —”

“My turn. Maybe you won’t say you’re tired, but I am.”

And suddenly he heard it in his voice, the roughness, the plea. He realized for the first time that Erik must be exhausted too, that he had gotten as little sleep as Eleven did, busy as he was caring for his every toss and turn. He sighed. “Yeah, I’m tired.”

“And I really wish you’d be honest with me.”

“My back hurts.”

“I love you.”

“I might be a little hungry, too.” 

“You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

 _Was he enjoying making him deeply uncomfortable?_ “I wish you’d leave me alone.”

“And every morning, I wake up and worry that you won’t be there.”

Eleven couldn’t bite back a retort. “For how long? Like half a second before you realize I’m not right next to you?”

He didn’t mean for it to sound so short — he actually loved that Erik cared so much, and what an unfair way to show it — _Gods_ , the way Erik played him — 

“I want truths, El.”

“What do you want me to say?” He sat back up and dug into the feelings, tired of Erik’s insistence on them, finally allowing them to surface. “That I hurt myself, believing that maybe if I wasn’t _me_ this wouldn’t be so bad?” He knew that Erik was the last person who deserved to bear the brunt of these thoughts, but he was unable to stop them. “You want me to tell you that sometimes when you’re asleep I get up and hold my sword and think about going back there? That I think about it every single day? ’Cause all those things are true, Erik.”

Erik closed his eyes and tilted his head back against the wall, angling his face towards the ceiling. It was probably safe to say Eleven was winning, and no, it didn’t feel sweet.

When Erik spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper. “I know those things. What I want to know is _why_.”

“Isn’t that simple? I’ve hurt all of you.”

“You _defeated Mordegon_ —”

“No. I don’t think you understand.” It was as much as he could bear to keep his voice even. “It’s not just that — can you imagine how much better things would be if these horrible things never happened? If —”

Erik scoffed. “You don’t think I understand _exactly_ how much suffering happened after Yggdrasil? That I didn’t wander alone and hungry for months, looking for you?”

“Some people regret things for their entire lives because they don’t have the ability to go back,” he snapped over Erik. “Here I am, with just that ability, eating stew and watching the stars. Every _second_ I’m alive, every time I look at you, it stings.” He sucked in a breath, trying not to topple over the precipice. “You think — you think I can just forget about all of this?”

“You don’t need to shoulder the entire world!”

“I do,” he said, and didn’t bother saying the obvious: _It’s all my fault._

Erik matched his tone, low and dangerous. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Try me. Tell me what right I have to decide for everyone else not to bring their daughters back.”

A beat of silence. “Yggdrasil gave you the right to choose. Either way you're gonna disappoint someone. People who want what they got, people who didn't.”

“Who could _want_ what they got —”

“People who recognize that what happened made them stronger, El!”

“Oh, don’t give me that.”

“You keep blaming yourself for what happened, but I don’t see how you could possibly be at fault. What were you supposed to do? See into the future? It’s not your responsibility anymore.”

“So that’s it? I’m just supposed to ignore all these people crying out to me in my dreams?”

“Yeah, that’s exactly it.” Erik crossed his arms. “The people in your dreams aren’t real. Do you really think you’re gonna fix everything by messing with the universe? You think it won't mess with you straight back? The dead are dead, we should leave them there.”

At the words — _we should leave them there_ — something shoved at the clustered mess in his stomach. It dislodged them and made bile rise up in his throat. He grappled for a retort through a dizzy haze. “Don’t say that to me —”

“Don’t think I’m going to be gentle anymore, El. You're a coward.”

"I… _what?"_ he breathed.

They stared at each other. The sun was beginning to set over the horizon, and a sabrecat howled in the distance somewhere. _Sure_ , it was true — he couldn’t think of anything else more true than his own cowardice. But coming from Erik?

Even in the fading light, Eleven could feel the flare in Erik’s eyes, burning into his soul. He spoke quietly, as if his gaze were intense enough. “At the tower I asked you to tell me that you were okay with what going back would cost you. I didn’t want you to go just because you were convinced you’ve failed, because you haven’t — _don’t look at me like that_ — and trying to make up for this supposed failure by,” he counted on his fingers, “abandoning all your friends in the present, taking an absolutely absurd risk that you won’t even fix everything you wanted to fix, and maybe you’re forgetting that you might not even fucking live, El —”

“None of that matters —”

" _That_ — that is the height of cowardice. And you're wrapping it up in a pretty little bow and calling it saving the world."

Eleven was speechless. He spluttered, trying to regain some semblance of coherent thought. He couldn’t believe Erik was taking this tack with him. How dare he reduce the most heart-wrenching decision of his life to this? How dare he equate preventing suffering for untold numbers of people with cowardice? He clutched his hands into fists, willing his anger to stay in his body where it belonged.

Erik turned away from him then, curling into the wall as if it could take him further away from Eleven. “You’ve got to stay in the world you were put in,” he told the sky. “Running away is the easy way out.” 

“That’s rich, coming from you!” 

“I always come back,” Erik snapped. 

“Look, it’s not about bravery. It’s about sacrifice. Yeah, it’s risky. Yeah, we might lose everything. But we’re just — we’re just ants on a hill, Erik. We’re worth what the world could get back. And it’s selfish to think anything otherwise.” 

Erik didn’t even flinch at the implication. “Maybe it’s time you were a little selfish!”

"Stop it. This is stupid, we’re never going to agree on this —” He bit back the rest of the sentence, irritation coursing through him that Erik would not look at him. _You wanted this, now do it properly —_

“Tell me something. What is it about going back to _that_ particular time that’s so great? Why can’t you just go back to when Mordy was born and kill him then?” 

“I don’t know, maybe we should —”

Erik ignored him. He looked resolutely away, digging his heels into the dirt. “There’s a whole can of worms that we don’t understand here, El. How much have you really thought about this? Or do you just want to play at being the martyr?” 

“I am _not_ —”

“Oh wait, I’ve got it. You wanna be the hero cause you’re not worth anything if you’re not.” 

“If all you’re gonna do is insult me, at least look at me while you do it!” he snapped, the siege blinding him to rational thought. He got to his feet and closed the space between them, grabbing onto Erik’s coat.

Erik pushed him back. His eyes finally landed on Eleven’s, hard and blazing, and when he spoke it was in the same silken, threatening way he had spoken in the Tower. “I’m gonna tell you something I haven’t told anyone. I need you to listen. Then you can yell at me as much as you want, alright?”

El sat back. His whole body shook from the force of the feelings that he had been holding back — for days, weeks, possibly even months. Erik’s closeness felt foreign in his chest, like he hadn’t earned it properly.

“I was really young when I lost my parents. I don’t even remember them. All I remember is the Vikings — the shouting, the bruises, broken arms. I can’t count how many times I got twice as much from trying to protect Mia. All we had was some packing cloth to huddle under for warmth afterwards. We became thieves, but none of the treasure in the world could replace what we really wanted: safety. Home.” Erik was breathing hard, but his eyes never left Eleven’s. “But if I could take that all away — if I could bring my family back?” 

Eleven didn’t believe the words even as they tumbled from Erik’s lips: _“I wouldn’t.”_

The weight of it was baffling. Eleven opened his mouth to speak, only to close it again. He had always suspected the Vikings — and wasn't surprised at the strength of Erik and Mia's bond in the face of it — but to _choose_ that? He couldn't fathom.

"The stuff that happened to me — that's what made me who I am. I wouldn't give it up, not for anything. Without all that… who knows, I could be a fisherman on Lonalulu somewhere, with parents whose most exciting day is to catch a baby tentacular.”

“Erik, I —”

“I would have never become a thief, or seen the wonders of the world, and… I would have never met you."

The words rose over him in a way only a tidal wave could. First there was the froth of the tide; it nibbled at his toes, warm and comfortable in Erik's conviction that Eleven was worth all that, as wrong as it seemed. But then the wave crashed — it felt cloying and desperate and loud in his ears and salty on his tongue and he was being drenched by grief, knowing that he would not, could not, say the same. 

He was drowning in memories that he could only imagine, so vividly he could taste the cake on his lips, feel the belt of his princely attire dig into his stomach, feel the air sway around him as he danced in the arms of another. As he twirled, his mother’s face smiled down at him, auburn bangs framing her cheeks. These were taken from him, and he would _never_ choose them second. Out of the haze of everything he had felt and thought since what happened at the Tower, this knowledge was crystal-clear.

“Yeah,” he finally said, his voice hoarse. “Well. I would.”

“You would… what?”

“Bring them back.”

Erik stared at him. Birds chirped somewhere in the distance, high above them.

“Your… your parents?”

Speaking was too much; he nodded.

“Wait, but — you’re not thinking of going back to _then_ , are you? Just the same thing would happen all over again — you were a baby then, it’s not like you could have stopped Mordegon that night —”

“ _I know that_.”

Erik stopped talking, his face twisted in confusion and concern. And then it dawned on him.

“Is that what this is about?” Erik whispered, each word driving pinpricks into Eleven’s skin. It felt like time had stopped. “You’d rather live in a world where Dundrasil never fell?”

 _Yes_ , his traitorous brain whispered, on instinct, on feral desire, while the rest of him shouted _no, no, I want this one, I want you. I want your strength, I want your courage._ Eleven looked up at him, almost afraid to see his expression. But it was tender, like he had heard that quiet _yes_ , buried deep as it was, crushed under duty and denial. 

“Going back doesn’t fix that, sweetheart.”

He squeezed his eyes closed. The way Erik's voice caught on the word _sweetheart_ threatened to make him fall apart at the seams, and maybe he already had. The memories playing at the edges of his imagination dissipated, leaving him cold. Stubborn tears waited to replace them. “I know," he finally whispered.

Erik didn't speak, but scooted closer to him on the rock, bringing warm fingers to cradle either side of his face. The tears filled his eyes, egged on by Erik's tenderness, but didn’t fall. 

“It’s just that… if I can’t have it, I... I want that for everyone else.”

"Oh, Ellie," he breathed. Eleven collapsed into him, unable to bear the full weight of feelings held out in the open.

The futility of it hit him all at once — he didn't know who, out there, was like himself or like Erik; he didn't know whose lives he would be ruining by trying to save them. Including his own.

If he couldn't give everyone what he couldn't have, if even time travel couldn't cure the ills of the world — then what was left? Solitude? Loneliness? Grief?

He breathed out. _No, not loneliness._ The gentle pressure around his waist and fingers splayed in his hair said as much. He pressed his face into the crook of Erik's neck and let the warmth envelop him. He didn't want to admit it, but this feeling was more real and more vivid than the memories that he had never experienced. The rushing of waves in his ears? A trickle compared to the whisper of Erik's heartbeat under his ear; and swaying in the Drasilian ballroom? It was nothing more than a fumble compared to the wind playing gently at his hair in this forsaken cave of stone.

But hadn't that been what he was trying to avoid all along? Being complacent in his cushy life, knowing that others were suffering because of his decisions? 

Had he _truly_ done everything he could?

 _No_ , said the quiet voice.

Erik's arm tightened around his waist, and his other hand smoothed Eleven's hair from his cheek. “El,” he whispered, his voice achingly gentle. “If you want to go... I won't stop you.”

“No. You’re right about all that stuff… I need to think about it more if I do go." He swallowed through his tears. "I-I… just have a lot of feelings.”

Erik laughed gently, more breath than sound. “That’s okay. You’re the one who taught me that, remember?”

He let out a breath onto the soft skin of Erik's neck. "It's a lot easier when they're not yours."

Erik leaned back a little to touch his face. His thumb trailed across Eleven’s cheek, and his other fingers tucked a lock of hair behind his ear. Eleven looked back at him, eyes dragging over his hardened jaw, a faint duo of scars on his shoulder. But then he met his eyes, blue and brighter than he had ever seen them. They whispered: _I turned out alright, didn’t I?_

_Better than before._

All he could do was sit in awe of his courage, and maybe a little envy. If he could trust Erik to come to terms with what happened, could he maybe trust other people to do it too? It didn’t feel right, and he wasn’t sure if it ever would. 

But he didn’t have to solve that now. He leaned back against Erik’s chest again, heavy in all the ways he couldn’t name, and let his warmth carry him away from the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!! Leave me a comment and let me know your favorite parts cause they always make my dayyy <3


	4. Fireflies

When the tears had emptied of their power over him, all that remained was a boneless haze. Every part of him ached: his eyes, his back, his heart. Erik still held him, smoothing damp tendrils of hair from his forehead and brushing the last of the tears from his cheeks with a tender thumb.

“We should go home,” Erik whispered against his skin.

His throat felt raspy. “I don’t want to go yet.”

“Aren’t you tired?”

“I don’t want you to stop holding me.”

Erik laughed, nothing more than a soft breath nestled against his ear. “I’ll hold you all night, if you want it. Just… might be better in a bed.”

If he were honest, a bed sounded like the best thing in the world. But part of him didn’t want this moment to end. He didn’t want to go back to the place he had chosen, to see their faces, for them to know he was this close to abandoning them forever. He knew it didn’t make sense — everyone must be asleep by now. At least for tonight, the path to comfort and warmth was clear-cut.

He just wasn’t sure if he deserved it.

“Listen, how about I show you something special?” Erik smiled at him, a little light in the darkness. “I was going to do this tomorrow, but if you’re not ready to go home yet…”

He held out his hand, and Eleven took it.

They crept out of the cave together and towards the main part of the village. With each rung down the ladder, dread settled deeper into his stomach. It was as if the space he and Erik occupied above Cobblestone was all their own, separate from the cares of the world, and touching the ground demanded that he face the consequences of his decision.

He stepped off the last rung of the ladder with something like a sigh.

With their hands linked together, Erik pulled him forwards. They stopped near the old tree with the Yggdrasil root wrapped snugly around it. Fireflies fluttered around the field, dozens of them, dotting little spots of light among the darkness. 

“I just need to get something from your house. Wait for me here?”

Inexplicable panic rose in his chest. He grabbed hold of Erik’s wrist. “Wait.”

Erik looked back at him, confusion etched across his face. “Do you want to come with me?”

He hated that words failed him like this. He shook his head.

“What is it?”

“Sorry, I just — sorry.”

“Ellie, don’t —”

"I'm sorry I've been such a pain."

Erik’s face softened, and he stepped closer to Eleven to draw him into his arms. “I will accept no apologies,” he whispered, his voice rough and gentle at the same time.

He pressed his face into the crook of Erik’s neck, seeking the heat of his skin. Erik sighed in response and brought a hand up to curl into his hair. He hadn't let himself relax into Erik's touch for weeks now, and this was slowly unraveling him; he was overcome with a desire to babble at him, tell him everything that had been on his heart, to lay his pain at Erik’s feet.

“Talk to me, please.”

He made a small sound and sank heavily down into the grass. Erik caught him on the way, grabbing on to his arm as he leaned his head forward onto one knee. He squeezed his eyes shut.

“I will carry you back myself —”

“Can we play the truth game again?” Eleven blurted.

Erik’s soft exhale hid a laugh. The sound was so sweet; he wanted to lean into it forever.

“Go ahead,” Erik said.

"I love you."

"Yeah?"

"Cause you're pretty, and you hold me when I'm sad, but you’re not afraid to yell at me when I need it, and —" 

He stopped short when Erik leaned forward to hold his face with both of his hands. No one had ever looked at him the way Erik looked at him. “Keep going,” he whispered.

Eleven flushed under his gaze. “It’s your turn."

“Ellie,” he said. The way his lips formed his name made him shiver. “You’ve been through so much, more than anyone could have expected of you, and still you worry about everyone else before yourself. I am so proud of you.”

“Erik —”

“I’m not done.” He moved his hand from Eleven’s cheek to grasp the back of his neck, and the other came to rest over his heart. “I told you before that you’re a coward, but the truth is, even if you decide to go in the end... you're the bravest person I know."

Eleven took a deep breath. There weren’t any truths that quite matched the enormity of that one. Erik was the king of silliness, but even in sincerity he stole all the breath out of him.

“I want to kiss you,” Eleven finally said.

Erik smiled. His hair fell over his eyes in a vision of beauty. “Sorry, truths only.”

“What?”

“Yep. You owe me ten gold.”

“Since when is that a rule!”

“Since I made it one —”

But he didn’t finish the sentence before Eleven pulled him in by the collar, capturing his mouth before he could come up with any more nonsense. Erik smiled against his lips and tightened his hand against the back of Eleven’s neck, drawing him in closer. 

“You’re the one who owes me,” Eleven whispered, tilting their foreheads together. “Accusing me of lying when I wasn’t.”

The smile didn’t fade from his lips. “Are you accepting currency other than gold?”

“Oh, stop it. Go get your — whatever it is.”

Erik grinned and squeezed his arm as he stood.

Eleven drew his other knee up and wrapped his arms around them as he watched Erik take off in a jog to their home. No — _his_ home. He had no idea if Erik wanted it to be _theirs_ ; everything after Mordegon had been such a whirlwind that they hadn’t talked about their future together. Maybe they should — but just now he wasn’t sure if he could handle a single extra emotion on the pile.

When Erik disappeared among the houses, he turned to face the old tree. It loomed over him, craggly and wrinkled and familiar in a way that so few things were now. Spurred by nostalgia, he curled his hand against the Yggdrasil root. It felt warm, and glowed with a bright light in response to him before going dark again.

He sucked in a breath, surprised by the life there was in it. “I’m sorry,” he started, words aching to tumble off his tongue and into the void that Yggdrasil cradled. “I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you —”

But before he could continue, he was dragged bodily through that void, spinning and twisting through oblivion with a sickening intimacy. He saw himself with his arms raised high over his head in a sacred temple, saw the Time Sphere shattering and shards of glass raining over nothingness, and then the pieces reforming not as the Sphere but as Erdwin’s Lantern, purple and yellow and awash among clouds of flame. Then it, too, shattered, laid to waste by a blackened figure swooping through the night.

The images vanished. Eleven sat back on his heels, breathing hard, pulse skyrocketing. He didn’t know what the images meant. His fingers itched to shout, to tear — he didn’t know why or how. He put his hand back on the root, demanding more, but it remained stubbornly silent.

What had it been trying to say? Wasn’t it better if the Lantern was destroyed before it fell? Was Yggdrasil trying to tell him to go back? But it had all felt so inexplicably _wrong_ — and more than anything, he had learned to trust the feelings that Yggdrasil’s visions gave him. But if she wanted him — _if she wanted him..._

“El?” In the daze, Erik had returned. “Are you alright? You’re shaking.”

Erik knelt down next to him, and the hand on his back gave him the strength to take a deep breath. He let the feelings crest over him, let them turn him upside down and shake the gravity from his bones. It didn’t matter what the root was trying to say, he decided — this was his decision, and his alone. He wanted what was taken from him, they all did, but to believe there was an easy answer? It was nothing more than a fool’s errand. He needed to close his mind to it, to find some way to amend things from where he was.

“Sorry, Erik, I —” he could barely finish the sentence for the way Erik’s eyes held everything together inside of him. “I’m fine when I’m with you.”

Erik kept gazing at him, like he was trying to figure out whether to believe him. But then he just nodded, and leaned in to kiss the corner of his mouth. “I love you,” he whispered.

Eleven let out a breath he didn’t realize he had been holding. He wanted to say something more, but Erik had turned away. Erik picked up something that had been draped under a piece of cloth, and a metal can, and brought them both to a spot just to the left of the Yggdrasil root.

“What are you doing?”

Erik ignored him and pulled something out of his pockets to start digging a hole in the grass. As he worked, he acknowledged the root nearby. “Hey Yggie, nice to see you.” 

Eleven fought the urge to giggle at the sight.

“We’re planting a new tree,” Erik continued. “To remind us that we can start over whenever we want to.”

 _Oh._ Suddenly he didn’t feel quite like giggling anymore.

Erik turned to lift the cloth from the object — it was a sapling. He placed it reverently into the ground and packed the soil back in around it. Then he sat back to admire his handiwork.

“What do you think?” he said, looking at both Eleven and the Yggdrasil root, as if he were asking both of them. 

Eleven’s throat was too closed up to speak. He sat down next to Erik in front of the new little tree and took his hand instead, squeezing it. Erik beamed at him.

With his right hand twined in Eleven’s, Erik reached for the metal can with his left. He poured a little water over the perimeter of the sapling. 

“Almighty Yggdrasil,” he said, as if in prayer, “Thank you for watching over us all the time. That’s pretty cool of you. Maybe watch over this little guy, too. And in return…” his voice dropped low and soft, “I promise to protect your favorite little leaf. Forever.”

"Oh, Erik," he breathed. The tears overflowed from his eyes before he even knew they were coming. 

"You're such a mess," Erik whispered. He raised their joined hands to press a kiss to Eleven’s knuckles. “We’ll figure this out, you know that, right?”

“Yeah,” he said. And he believed it. Eleven lay his head on Erik’s shoulder, their hands still twisted together, watching the fireflies as they floated among the twin trees.

Maybe, just maybe, it would be alright if he stayed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the longest thing I’ve ever finished!!! (it’s not even very long but still a record for me) thank you so much for sticking around <3 <3


End file.
